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People's sight matters: new five year strategy for Moorfields

11 July 2017

Moorfields has today launched a new five year strategy which for the first time brings together all aspects of our work across clinical care, research and education and applies to our NHS and private services, both in the UK and internationally.

The strategy for 2017-2022 sets out Moorfields’ core belief which is ‘people’s sight matters’ and a new organisational purpose to ‘work together to discover, develop and deliver the best eye care’.

Moorfields’ strategy for 2017-2022 builds on our original ‘Vision of excellence’ strategy launched in 2012. It outlines eight objectives which includes our ambitions to:

Be at the leading edge of research, making new discoveries with our partners and patients.

Innovate by sharing our knowledge and developing tomorrow’s experts.

The strategy also includes a number of new objectives:

Collaborate to shape national policy including clinical and professional standards that impact its patients, staff and services.

Have an infrastructure and culture that supports innovation which includes delivering against capital development projects such as our new research, education and clinical care centre in the Kings Cross/St Pancras area by 2024 in collaboration with UCL and Moorfields Eye Charity.

Be enterprising to support and fund our ambitions by investing in our commercial activities both in the UK and overseas.

Watch our short video to find out more about our strategy:

Johanna Moss, director of strategy and business development at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our sight is a critically important sense. Patients tell us that the experience of losing sight is distressing and can be isolating and costly. Our new strategy aims to put people affected by sight loss at the centre of the care we provide so we can support their needs by discovering, developing and delivering the best eye care.”

Moorfields’ strategy was jointly developed with our research partner the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology and produced based on consultation with patients, Moorfields’ staff and a number of external partners including organisations such as the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), Royal College of Ophthalmologists and College of Optometrists

Professor Andrew Dick, director of the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Duke-Elder Chair of Ophthalmology, who jointly led the strategy development process with Moorfields said: “Our partnership with Moorfields Eye Hospital is essential to enable us to be at the leading edge of research and education. We welcome this new strategic vision and look forward to working with Moorfields to make it a reality over the next five years.”

Notes to editors

For more information, please contact the Moorfields Eye Hospital press office on press.office@moorfields.nhs.uk or call 020 7566 2628. For out of hours enquiries please call 020 7253 3411 to speak to the on call press officer.

Moorfields’ five year strategy brings together all aspects its work across clinical care, research and education and applies to its NHS and private services, both in the UK and internationally. It builds on its original ‘Vision of Excellence’ published in 2012. Over 800 people fed into the development of the refreshed strategy including patients, staff and a range of external stakeholders. More information about the strategy can be found at moorfields.nhs.uk/moorfieldsvision

Moorfields is one of the leading providers of eye health services in the UK and a world class centre of excellence for ophthalmic research and education. Our main focus is the treatment and care of NHS patients with a wide range of eye problems, from common complaints to rare conditions that require treatment not available elsewhere in the UK. Our unique patient case-mix and the number of people we treat mean that our clinicians have expertise in discrete ophthalmic sub-specialties.

In 2015/16 we saw more than half a million patients in our outpatient services and carried out almost 40,000 surgical procedures, making Moorfields the largest ophthalmic provider in the UK. We also provided care to 104,000 patients in our A&E department.

We treat people in 32 locations in and around London, the south east and Bedford, enabling us to provide expert treatment closer to patients’ homes. We also operate commercial divisions that provide care to private patients in both London and the Middle East.

With our academic partners at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, Moorfields is recognised as a leading centre of excellence in eye and vision research. Together we form one of the largest ophthalmic research sites in the world, with the largest patient population in Europe or the USA. We publish more scientific papers than any other eye and vision research site and have an extensive joint research portfolio.

National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology was established in April 2007 and has recently been awarded a third five-year term by the NIHR from April 2017. Its purpose is to conduct 'translational research' that is designed to take advances in basic medical research from the laboratory to the clinic, enabling patients to benefit more quickly from new scientific breakthroughs. Our centre is currently one of 20 biomedical research centres that have been awarded from April 2017 to NHS/university partnerships with an outstanding international reputation for medical research and expertise, and experience of translating that research into the clinical setting. For further information, please visit www.brcophthalmology.org.

UCL Institute of Ophthalmology is one of a number of specialised research centres within UCL (University College London) and is, together with Moorfields Eye Hospital, one of the leading centres for eye research worldwide. The combination of the Institute’s research resource with the resources of Moorfields Eye Hospital, which has the largest ophthalmic patient population in the Western World, opens the way for advances at the forefront of vision research. For further information, please visit www.ucl.ac.uk.